Get That Life: How I Started Urban Decay Cosmetics

Twenty-one years ago, Wende Zomnir cofounded and launched Urban Decay, an edgy line of makeup in fun, interesting colors, out of her Laguna Beach, California, bungalow. Now she shares how she started the cult-favorite makeup brand with no prior experience in the cosmetics industry and how the brand continues to keep up its momentum after two decades.

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My mom had a pretty good makeup drawer for a mom but certainly nothing on a lot of moms in Texas, where I grew up. My mom was pretty strict. I wasn’t allowed to see even PG movies. When I was 12, I went over to a friend’s house, and they had a daughter a couple years older than me, and she had a Seventeen magazine, which I had never seen before in my life. I was like, “This is the bomb right here! Oh my gosh.” I had never seen young women in magazines wearing makeup and I got very inspired. My mom didn’t keep me from makeup, she just didn’t want me seeing all the outside media because she was morally strict. [I had] to buy Seventeen without her knowing because she thought it had all this subversive stuff in it, which it didn’t.

When I was 13, she bought me a big Calvin Klein makeup kit, and I would sit and tear pages out of magazines and try and recreate the looks. I got sent home from school once in eighth grade for wearing too much makeup.

My dad was an expat working for a multinational [company], so I went to high school in Belgium. My sister and I would go to London, so that we could shop at Boots and buy Bourjois makeup, which was in these little color-coded pots, and they had all these crazy bright colors.

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My family moved back to the States, and when I was 19, I was in the Miss Texas pageant. I entered because the winner got a car. It’s an expensive endeavor to buy your dress and get down there, so I had to go around to different businesses and pitch them on why they should sponsor me. That was definitely a lesson in life on how to go get what you want.

For the pageant, I had to do my own makeup, and that was pretty exciting for me because I got the biggest bag of Maybelline makeup I had ever seen in my life for being a contestant. I was like, If I don’t win anything other than this, I got the giant bag of makeup. I’m so happy. I didn’t end up winning, which I was bummed about because I liked to win, but I didn't care about being Miss Texas as much as some people.

At that time in my life, I was drawn to lots of pink on the eyelids, blush, and hot pink lips. I was definitely pretty standard Texas. I wasn’t that super-edgy makeup girl at that point, but I was diving into it. I was an art major [and] a painter and would use my painting brushes because I didn’t really have makeup brushes.

I went to college for a year at Southern Methodist University and then finished at North Texas University. After school, I interned at an ad agency in Chicago called Leo Burnett. While I was working at the ad agency, I had a boyfriend who was from California. He was like, “Aren’t you tired of being cold? Let’s move back.” I was really into scuba diving at the time, so I decided to move and become a scuba instructor. Little did I realize the Pacific Ocean is freezing-ass cold and it’s not really that pleasant to be in. So I worked for another marketing agency in California but really didn’t love it.

I knew I wanted to start my own business, do something entrepreneurial. My dad worked for a big company, and he didn’t always seem super fulfilled by it. He always talked about how he wanted to start a business, and he had all these ideas, but he never did it. I had a lot of that in myself where I felt, If [only] I could just do something on my own and make it my own. I'd started doing journalism for little, local magazines, and I was pitching these travel stories. It was during that time in August 1995 when I met Sandy Lerner [businesswoman and cofounder of Urban Decay Cosmetics] and everything changed.

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When I met Sandy, she was like, “You know, there’s just no good-quality makeup available in different crazy colors.” I always loved the stage-light makeup and all that iridescent stuff at Spencer’s, and I was like, “Yeah, you can’t really find it in a department store.” After that, the wheels started turning, and I thought, You know, we really could do this. We really could start a makeup brand. We were shipping product by January 1996. I made it happen fast.

The day-to-day work I was doing in the second bedroom of my little Laguna Beach bungalow. I had a slimy paper fax machine and just a shelf with some bins on it for product. I would fly up to San Jose and meet with Sandy, and we’d collaborate on product ideas. We launched with 12 nail polishes and 10 lipsticks. I remember working on the nail polish and wondering how we could make it seem and feel really different. Then I had an idea to put it in a medicine bottle, so that’s what we did. I would mix colors and pigment in my kitchen and cook up something that a lab could match, but we weren't actually manufacturing in my house.

I realized nail polish is like car paint, so I called car paint manufacturers and they were like, "Oh, yeah, we make nail polish too." So then I asked the paint guys where we could get bottles. Then I asked the bottle place, "Hey, where would I make lipstick?" And they told me where to make lipstick. I just started building my network, and someone was like "Hey, there's a trade show where all this stuff is there." It was really fun because it was all about discovery of the behind the scenes and really figuring out how to do it [at a time] when there wasn't [really] internet. It was like a little research project.

The next step was figuring out how we were going to sell it. My boyfriend at the time had a friend who was a swimsuit rep. The friend was traveling through Laguna on his way to San Diego, and he called and asked, “Hey, can I stop and take a shower at your house before I go see my buyers?” He was in the shower, and I’m like, I bet he’s got a Nordstrom buyer list in that bag of his. I knew they had MAC at Nordstrom, so that led me to believe that they would be open to something edgy and cool in the makeup area. I pulled out the list, wrote down all the numbers, and put it back. After he left the house, I picked up the phone and said, “Hey, I got your number from [a friend]. He said he’d give me the name of the cosmetics buyer.” And they all dished out. I had names and numbers like that.

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I think that one of the things that helped me so much was that when I walked into that first meeting with Nordstrom, I had a pitch. I had learned from my ad agency days how to be professional. Even though I looked edgy and had a different perspective, and my brand was really different and quirky compared to what was out there at the time, I knew how to go in and sell the product, sell myself, and make them believe in me. You really have to spend some time figuring out what your pitch is. What does your brand mean? How can you come off as a professional and not a flighty person like, I’m creative so I want to start a makeup brand. You have to believe in your business side as well.

I remember calling Sandy and going, "I did it! I did it! We got the order! We got the order!" I was so excited. I remember exactly where I was, at Horton Plaza standing by a kiosk. The next big account we talked to was Macy's. When Sephora came to the U.S. in 1998, I was like, Oh my gosh, this is great. It was really fun to work with Sephora at that time because we were in the same boat of being complete outsiders in the industry.

Our eye shadow primer potion was one of our first star products and really changed the way people thought about eye shadow primer. The story behind it was that I wore this smoky shadow on a plane after a photo shoot in L.A. and when I landed in London, my eye shadow still looked great. That's about 10 or 11 hours. We had this great testing story, and we really used all of that to create a star product out of primer. I always say my favorite product is the "Zodiac" eye shadow because it hits my love of smoky, sparkle, and color all in one.

You never feel like you've totally made it. We're always scratching and fighting. But what really exploded our brand into everyone's kind of consciousness in the makeup world was the Alice in Wonderland palette in 2010. It sold out before it ever hit the shelves. It was such a bummer too because we had all these cool displays that no one ever saw. It was before big makeup launches were really happening. The employees at the stores didn't know what to do. People were coming in and asking for it, so they were selling it out of the back room.

I think we were one of the first brands to really embrace social media. We had a huge following on our Myspace page around 2008, and I remember going to my business partner and saying, “We need to hire this person to do Facebook for us.” And he's like, “We’re going to hire someone to be on Facebook all day?” He thought it was a little crazy, but that group has clearly grown from one person to multiple people now. [Social media] is one of our most important marketing arms and I couldn't be happier.

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We've been working with influencers for a long time, pretty much since the beginning. But obviously the whole thing has exploded, and it's bigger than any of us could ever have imagined. Back in the day when I started pitching Urban Decay and going around to all the magazines in New York, people thought I was bananas crazy for all the makeup I would wear and would look at me like I was strange. And now, I look like I'm wearing no makeup compared to the influencers.

You never feel like you've totally made it. We're always scratching and fighting.

Now in addition to speaking to the beauty press, I also get to speak to these complete makeup junkies, and they go out and help me sell it. I credit them for being able to create more unique products. I always say that five years ago, I couldn't have sold a color corrector to save my life. And now I can't keep them in stock, and it's because you have these influencers that actually show people how to use them.

I hope that fans of the brand still see my point of view coming through in all the products, and they feel like it's a connection we have with them. I think they know we're still cooking this up on the little table in the back of the office, which is what happens.

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For us, it's all about staying in touch with our customers and continuing to bring them really cool, innovative formulas and not necessarily just doing what everyone else in the industry is doing. We're always trying to do something different. Collaborations are fun, and I think more people are open to them now, and more customers are looking toward them as a collectible item. We have some collaborations in the works that will be very exciting.

I think the most important thing for me is keeping my eye on the ball with Urban Decay and raising my kids. You're always torn when you're a mom and working. My son's going to high school next year, so I'm really focused on trying to be present with him for the next four years [before he leaves for college]. My other one is 11, and there's not that much time left with him either, so what's next for me is focusing on being their mama.

Get That Life is a weekly series that reveals how successful, talented, creative women got to where they are now. Check back each Monday for the latest interview.